At Summer’s end, one of my favorite activities to do to welcome in the next season is collect apples from the trees around the farm and make applesauce. This is a warm, memory-making tradition for children.

Here in New York, many of the country hillsides are covered with apple trees of various old-fashioned varieties, some whose names have been forgotten. There are an array of colors and sizes, blending in with the Autumn leaves themselves.

Many of these apples seem undesirable for eating out of hand, planted long ago by farmers intending to make many of them into hard cider and vinegar to store for the winter. (As a child I was told they were “crab apples”. I know now this name belongs only to the cherry-sized ornamental apple trees from which one can also, by the way, make sauce). But a number of the apples are sweet and delicious…